Why Did It Take United Airlines So Long to Apologize?

Just a few weeks after United Airlines denied two young girls the right to board because they were wearing leggings, the airline has landed in hot water once again—and this time for a much more serious offense.

On Sunday night, the airline “overbooked” a flight from Chicago to Louisville, Kentucky, and offered passengers up to $1,000 to volunteer to give up their seats. After no passengers complied, and the flight had been boarded, the airline chose four passengers to be removed. When one of those passengers, a 69-year-old doctor, refused to leave his seat, police were called in by the airline to help remove him. Videos captured by fellow flyers show a group of police officers aggressively pulling the man from his seat, causing his head to hit an armrest. The man is later seen on various videos being dragged down the aisle of the airplane by the police officers while bleeding from the face with his torso exposed. So much for “flying the friendly skies.”

Footage of the incident quickly went viral. Users called for a boycott of the airline, while others began making memes or sharing posts with a hashtag called #NewUnitedAirlinesMottos that offered slogansuggestions such as: “We have red-eye and black-eye flights available” and “We overbooked, but you pay the price.”

Hours after the videos started making the rounds online, United Airlines put out a series of statements. The first, given to BuzzFeed News, read: “Flight 3411 from Chicago to Louisville was overbooked. After our team looked for volunteers, one customer refused to leave the aircraft voluntarily and law enforcement was asked to come to the gate. We apologize for the overbook situation. Further details on the removed customer should be directed to authorities.” A few minutes later, United’s CEO Oscar Munoz offered another non-apology, focusing instead on the airline’s overbooking problem saying, “I apologize for having to re-accommodate these customers.”

Things took a turn for the worse after an email from Munoz to United’s employees was published online. In this letter, Munoz again refused to take responsibility for the violent escalation of the situation. He offered no apology to the passenger (whom he called “disruptive and belligerent”) and insisted that the airline had “no choice but to call Chicago Aviation Security Officers.”

A PR crisis and ensuing social media outrage is not an unfamiliar situation for a big brand to be in: Just last week, controversy surrounding a Pepsi commercial starring Kendall Jenner provoked the brand to remove it. (The ad, which showed Jenner whimsically taking up with a roving gang of protesters, was criticized for co-opting imagery from the Black Lives Matter movement and the Women’s March in order to sell soda; Bernice King, Martin Luther King’s daughter, even shared an old photo of her father confronting police on Twitter, with the caption: “If only Daddy would have known about the power of Pepsi.”) But unlike United, Pepsi quickly acknowledged its mistake. The brand pulled the ad just one day after it premiered, and released a statement taking full responsibility for their offensive commercial. “Pepsi was trying to project a global message of unity, peace, and understanding. Clearly, we missed the mark and apologize,” it read. “We did not intend to make light of any serious issue. We are pulling the content and halting any further rollout.”

At around 3:00 p.m. today, United finally used the magic words: “I apologize.” The company’s CEO, Oscar Munoz, wrote the following: ”The truly horrific event that occurred on this flight has elicited many responses from all of us: outrage, anger, disappointment. I share all of those sentiments, and one above all: my deepest apologies for what happened. Like you, I continue to be disturbed by what happened on this flight and I deeply apologize to the customer forcibly removed and to all the customers aboard. No one should ever be mistreated this way. I want you to know that we take full responsibility and we will work to make it right.”

It's hard to understand why it took the airline nearly two full business days to atone for their actions—an omission that has led some to draw comparisons to President Trump’s seemingly shared aversion to ever acknowledging his own wrongdoing. Not only did the outrage against the airline continue to escalate, but as of this morning, their shares took a dive of more than 4 percent, losing them roughly a billion dollars in market value. While it’s never too late to do the right thing, you can’t help but wonder: Is it too little too late?